


A Journey of Uncertain Length

by aldiara



Category: Lucifer (Comic)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-01
Updated: 2010-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:39:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aldiara/pseuds/aldiara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karl and Jayesh take a trip to the Dead Sea. Their Issues gleefully tag along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Journey of Uncertain Length

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago and am kinda just tossing it up here because it looks ridiculous to have Lucifer listed among my fandoms just for a tiny scrap of AWZ crossover drabble.

 

It’s quiet at the Dead Sea. _That’s because it’s dead, see?_ Jayesh said with a shit-eating grin, because he’s lame like that. Karl groaned the first time he did it, over breakfast, and whacked him one with his rolled-up newspaper.

 

Mostly it’s the season. March is too early for the tourists, and this year it’s not even anywhere near Easter. They have much of the hotel to themselves. A ground floor room was no problem, which is good considering the ominous rattling of the elevator.

 

The receptionist is grey and stoop-shouldered and has a look like worn paper about him, as if one of these days his contours will start blurring and you’ll be able to make out the shapes of things behind him as he slowly goes transparent. When they check in, he consults a clunky computer that looks like it just had all sorts of exciting upgrades from 1983 installed to pull up their reservation.

“Mr Dah-mut-ter and Mr Deva?” he reads off the tiny screen, very slowly and in heavily accented English. “I have you down for a double room.”

“That’s right,” Karl says firmly, refusing to blush; he’s tense enough about being a German in Israel, but the paper man doesn’t so much as blink as he hands him the keys. Peering over the counter at Jayesh doing slow turns about the empty lobby in his wheelchair, he asks, without interest, if they’ll be needing special assistance. Not as long as the dining room’s accessible, Karl says. It is. That’s all good then.

 

It’s a small hotel, and rather dingy. They were too cheap for one of the giant spa resorts with Jacuzzis and treatment centres and spas and whatnot. “After all,” Jayesh says, heaving himself from the wheelchair onto one of the beds in the room while Karl tosses his jacket and the keys on the other, “what point coming all the way to the Dead Sea just to sit in a hotel swimming pool?”

“Yeah, plus you can float in the Dead Sea, so I won’t have to keep your scrawny ass above water,” Karl agrees, and Jayesh tosses a pillow at him. “Jerk.”

 

….

 

Karl wakes up in the middle of the night, groggy with jetlag and disoriented, his heart pounding from a nightmare he can’t recall, and his throat still rough from the cry that woke him. It happens frequently enough, but night terrors aren’t something you get used to, apparently. Jayesh turns towards him, still mostly asleep, and throws an arm across his chest, mumbling something soothing. Karl lies motionless, staring up at the dark, unfamiliar ceiling, waiting for his heartbeat to slow down. Occasionally, he catches himself wishing that atonement was more like a mortgage: you have a certain amount you have to pay off, and it’s a bitch to scrounge up the money each month, alright, but once you’re done, you’re done – you own your guilt and are free to dispose of it. An end in sight, sums you can tally up, a budget, a plan, a day in the calendar you can circle in red. Not so. He’s come to terms with the fact that this is a lifelong sort of deal, more or less, and he gets quite what he deserves. Doesn’t mean he can’t wish it were different.

 

…

 

The hotel is quiet, at least. It’s about half empty, and the other guests are here for much the same reasons as Jayesh and him: economic considerations paired with a wish to remain private and off the beaten track. Some backpackers taking advantage of the off-season rates, youngish couples on an early Easter break, a group of what looks like marine biology students, hauling worn equipment about the place. They even run into another couple of what Jayesh calls the “tribe” (Karl hates that word) over the breakfast buffet, and again in the lobby later: an elderly guy with a nervous grin and a skinny, bored-looking kid of about twenty. They’re from Lithuania. There’s some small talk, some covert smiles; the older guy tells Karl about what stretches of beach to avoid and reminds him, with a touch too much solicitousness, to use plenty of sunscreen – _your skin is so fair, wouldn’t want you to burn_ – while the younger one browses brochures in silence, chewing gum and occasionally casting speculative looks at Jayesh and his chair. Mr Nervous Grin stage-whispers about a few local “specialty events” they might care to visit – perhaps even together? But they’re not particularly interested in mingling, and certainly not in making special friends. Sooner or later it always ends in offers of threesomes or partner swaps, or worse, relationship talk, and that’s just asking for all sorts of trouble.

 _(So, you two make a really cute couple. How did you get together?_

 _­-Oh, now_ there’s _an interesting story. See, I was a gay-bashing neonazi, and he was Indian, and gay, and into me – well, in combination that really freaked me out, so my friends beat him to within an inch of his life and I raped him with a broken beer bottle, except then I felt really shitty about it and cleaned up my act, so now I look after him, since he’ll never walk again and all. It’s really quite romantic.)_

 

Yeah. Alone is good.

 

….

 

When they go to the beach (following the Lithuanian guy’s directions, and he was right: the stretch he recommended is nice), they leave the wheelchair near the boardwalk, because there’s just no taking the damn thing across the sand; it was already complaining about the gravel on the way here. Karl carries Jayesh the last bit across the dunes, bitching about the weight because he’s expected to, but really he likes it; enjoys the solid, relaxed feel of Jayesh in his arms, the outline of bones through lean muscle (he’s too thin, must do something about that); the arms about his neck, dragging him down, anchoring him.

They settle down in a comfortable nook of sand and dune grass, and Karl goes back to get the cooler while Jayesh spreads out the blanket and himself on top of it. Karl puts the brakes on the chair as he passes. It’s still visible from where they’re sitting, slightly above them, just in case anyone’s sick enough to steal a wheelchair.

 

Karl hates that chair. Hates it with a dull, aching, unrelenting fury that eats at him slowly, hollowing him out. The fucking thing is a constant reminder, and of course it should be, he deserves that, but it’s not the chair itself that scratches at his soul so, it’s the fact that Jayesh’s in it. And every time he picks him up from physio, he can’t help but hoping that this time Jay will be bouncing up and down; this time his face will be in a huge, excited grin and he’ll say, _I did it, Karl, I stood up, I stood up for a whole thirty seconds, they’re saying I might be walking by the end of the year if I work hard._ But it never happens. Jayesh accepts this, and the chair, with such good grace that sometimes Karl wants to shake him, wants to shout at him, _Can’t you fucking TRY and fight, at least?_

That’s the thing, though: he does. He just fights in completely different ways than Karl can make sense of.

 

…

 

The dunes are empty; they have the beach to themselves. Against the dirty brown of the sand, the white deposits of salt are clearly visible, running in several tiers along the shoreline. They change, Karl complaining about why they have to bother with swimming trunks if there’s not a soul around, but this is where Jayesh is a prude. _But didn’t you ever go to the nude beach when you were little?_ Karl asks, knowing his family moved to Germany when Jayesh was only a baby. Jayesh gives him a look. _Can you imagine my mother at a nude beach?_ he asks dryly, and Karl, trying to picture just that – the formidable Rupinder Deva, disapproving frown lodged firmly in place, starting to unravel her layers and layers of coloured silk, surrounded by sagging, middle-aged naked people and small, bare-buttocked, screaming children – can’t decide whether the image fills him with more amusement or sheer terror. Jay grins at him, probably reading his mind. Bloody unsettling trait, that.

 

…

 

The water is surprisingly warm as Karl carries Jayesh into it. It’s a calm day, and the waves aren’t very high here, with nothing to break their onrush. They splash about for a while, delighting in the natural buoyancy like a pair of five-year-olds, trying to dunk each other and gurgling laughter as they promptly pop back up to the surface. Eventually Jayesh flops onto his back in the water, arms outspread, and just drifts. Not trusting the water entirely, Karl keeps an eye on him, treading cautiously with the waves lapping against his chest, until Jayesh cracks an eyelid and casually flicks water into his face. “Stop hovering.”

Karl spits salt water. “Well excuse me for not wanting you to drown.”

“Karl, it’s fine,” Jayesh replies lazily, eyes closed again, his spread arms and legs moving gently in the water, as boneless as seaweed. Karl settles for drifting up against him, half underneath, arms aligned. The buoyant water presses him upwards against Jayesh’s limbs, and Jay’s fingers close slowly about his own. They float, tangled and weightless. Doesn’t matter if your legs work in here. Karl closes his eyes, too. The sun burns his upturned face except where Jayesh’s wet hair is drifting against it, and the salt of the sea is like the taste of tears on his lips.

 

…

 

When they’ve had enough of the water, they return to their blanket to dry off and eat sandwiches, leaving crumbs everywhere. A few gulls land nearby, and Karl shoos them off with some well-aimed pebbles. It actually works; these are much shier of people than the pests at home on the Elbe. They drink Pils from the cooler and talk for a while, sitting shoulder to shoulder. Not about anything important, just small stuff: the new guy at physio, a movie they’ve been wanting to see, Jayesh’s cousin Indrani and her upcoming disaster of a traditional Indian wedding, complete with about five hundred guests ( _I am NOT dancing,_ Karl says, very firmly).

Karl rambles about his plans for expanding the bookstore. Jayesh listens patiently as he finishes his beer, then tosses the can aside. Karl is still talking about his dream of installing a gallery on the second floor when he notices that Jayesh’s head has dropped to his shoulder and he’s breathing deep and even. He snorts, but doesn’t shake him or stir. He gets tired more easily these days.

 

Karl sits there while Jay sleeps, drinking his beer, watching the glitter of the waves, the shapes of seagulls far out to sea. Towards the east, he can just make out the line of mountains along the coast, the peaks blurry in the heat. A light breeze is stirring his hair, and his toes feel good dug into the sand, warm and anchored. Some sort of crab is edging along one of the salt lines. It looks pretty funny, the sideways way it walks, almost furtive, claws clicking together occasionally. To Karl, it looks like a defiant teenager swaggering to hide his paranoia, all, _You gotta problem with me walking here, buddy? Wanna do something about it? Eh, eh? Clickety-click._

 

The sun, the rolling waves, the white sand, the hot boyfriend sleeping on his shoulder: it’s all nearly too cliché, almost staged. Even the crab. There’s just a small shape in the corner of his eye that doesn’t fit in. The wheelchair sits on top of the dunes like a righteous old lady, sunlight occasionally glinting off the spokes as though to remind him that this particular picture postcard has a sick punch line. 

Like he needed reminding.

 

He tilts his head a bit to watch Jayesh’s relaxed face. He has great eyelashes, long and thick, shading his cheekbones. Karl has known girls who would kill to have lashes like that. They twitch a bit as he watches, eventually lifting slowly. Jay’s eyes are a dark, smoky blue, passed down from a British great-grandfather according to his mother. They form a surprising contrast to his dark curls and bronze skin. He yawns, blinking as he lifts his head, leaving a damp spot on Karl’s shoulder. “Uhn. Was I out long?”

“Nah. Just long enough to miss my discourse on my endangered livelihood and passion – which, I’ll have you know, I tell _very_ few people about, and – oh, stop looking like that,” he snorts, poking Jayesh in the shoulder. “I’m joking.”

Jayesh’s expression of complete chagrin gives way to exasperation and no small measure of relief. “Can you stop being a wanker for two seconds?”

“I thought you quite enjoyed me wanking y-“

“Karl!”

Jayesh tackles him, or tries to, but the legs are a problem. With an annoyed grunt, he simply throws himself on Karl instead, with all the grace and determination of a stranded walrus. They mock-wrestle for a bit, but it quickly deteriorates into a tickling fight, and then a clumsy make-out session that leads to sand in interesting places. Karl would be happy to take it further, intoxicated by sun and silliness and the feel of Jay’s muscles moving under his skin, but Jay stops them before things get too heated. He’s not too wild about public places. _Later_ , he promises, voice low and heated, and Karl has some trouble getting back into his trousers.

 

The sight of the wheelchair helps. It always does.

 

…

 

The first time Jayesh made him top was like… well, catastrophe. Honestly, Karl would have preferred a public flogging.

He hadn’t expected it, not then, not ever. Had had no intentions of ever going there, and even fewer expectations of Jayesh ever letting him, let alone _making_ him. They did alright as it was. More than alright, considering how lucky it was that the damage to Jay’s spine had not affected his capacity in that department.

They used hands, and mouths, and Karl rode him sometimes, and it was good – hell, it was better than good, it was awesome; but when Jayesh brought up the other possibility, Karl very nearly bolted.

It was December; he remembers because that stupid store across from his tiny second-floor flat had its Christmas lights on. They flashed periodically through the thin curtains of the bedroom, throwing strange patterns of green and red across Jayesh’s bare skin. They’d just been lying there kissing, hands exploring leisurely, unhurried, nothing on Karl’s mind except a friendly wank and maybe a shower together after, when Jayesh had reached down to grab one of his motionless legs and pulled it up, knee bent, towards his own shoulder, so Karl unexpectedly found himself between his legs. He’d started to sit up, startled, but Jayesh’s other hand had held him fast, pulling him close. _I want you inside me_ , he’d whispered, and that’s where it all got a little fuzzy on the details for Karl. Probably he had protested, probably a good deal, but all he remembered was Jayesh looking at him in those stupid Christmas lights, steady on and solemn and not saying anything until his own stream of negation dried out. _Please_ , he’d said then. _I think we need this._ And he’d relented, because denying Jayesh anything when he looked like that and said please like that was just not something he’d ever figured out how to do.

 

He’d seen the scars, of course. It was hard not to. A fine webbing of white and pinkish lines, criss-crossing the backs of Jayesh’s thighs and disappearing between his buttocks; but it was a different thing altogether to _feel_ them, to feel them _there_ , and he thought he might have said something, then; might have cried, pleaded, begged Jayesh to let him off this one.

But Jayesh hadn’t.

 

He’s suspected, sometimes, that Jayesh has his own way of taking revenge, and it’s the most wrenching, most effective, most bloody foolproof way of all: love. Jay loves him, has loved him for a long time, still loves him in spite of what he’s done; every day Karl feels it redeem him and damn him within the same breath. It’s so complete, so enveloping that there’s no escape from it, and in his darker moments he thinks that it’s worse than anything the Angel or the Judge could have done to him. Because Jay knows, and loves him anyway, waking up every morning next to the man who’s basically destroyed his life, and embracing him so completely, so tenderly, so wholly without reproach, as if it was Karl that needed fixing, not him; and in the face of that, what can he do, what can he possibly offer except complete supplication?

 

 _Please, Karl_ , Jayesh had said again that night, his eyes night-black and those eerie green-red flashes pulsing across his face; he’d clutched him hard, and his lips had been damp against Karl’s jaw, his breath so hot; _please, I want to feel you._ One hand on Karl’s shoulder, and the other one groping for the lube and a condom, and then sliding down between them. Slicking him up and guiding first his fingers, then his cock, and by the time he actually did it, pushing in against the terrible resistance of that scar tissue pulled taut around him, Karl had been crying, whispering curses and pleas and he didn’t know what else. Jay had been quiet, but unrelenting, his body undulating underneath Karl’s, so graceful, although he could tell that it hurt by the miniscule twitches in Jay’s face, the fingers digging into his shoulder. He’d been desperate and scared and furious by then: at Jayesh for making him do this, at himself for doing it, for still being aroused by it in spite of the awfulness of it all. He’d tried to be careful, but it was all wrong; it was too tight, it pulled in the wrong places, he felt as if the scars were searing him, slicing him open wherever they met his trembling flesh. And still Jayesh made them both move, made them go through with it, clenched tightly about him with pain, not lust, occasionally making small, strained sounds he could not keep in. Karl had moved with eyes clenched shut, feeling tiny tears open in that too-stretched tissue, no matter how shallow his thrusts, and come eventually, because he was a fucking caveman and couldn’t help it – there was a hole to fuck, and his stupid dick didn’t care about scars or blood or shame –  he’d jerked and spilled and collapsed, miserable and crying, on top of Jay, who’d held him quietly, and only when he felt moisture on his forehead did he realise that Jay was crying too.

 _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ , he’d gabbled uselessly – always useless, because there was no plane of existence on which he could say those words and ever have them be enough, ever mean what he needed them to mean. Jayesh had just held him, stroking his hair with shaking fingers, and told him it was okay, when it was anything but.

 

So yeah, that time sucked, but the thing about Jay was that he didn’t bloody well give up. It happened again, a few weeks later, and that time had been pretty crap too, but after that had come a couple times when it was okay. Then a time that was almost good. Then, suddenly, a time that blew both their minds. And had the expression on Jay’s face then – that smile blossoming across his sweat-sheened, exhausted face, the way his eyes had sparkled triumphantly, moist lips already parted for a kiss or a dirty joke or both – been worth the misery before? Perhaps… and if Jayesh thinks so, who is he to argue?

 

…

Jay fights, alright. And to be honest, no matter how incomprehensible the battles he picks are to Karl sometimes, he can’t muster too much real resistance when the outcome involves simultaneous orgasms.

…

 

The March sun is much stronger here than it would be back home. Even a few days at the beach deepen the bronze of Jayesh’s skin, limning it golden-brown and good enough to eat. He looks healthy, flushed and damp from the water, salt crystals in his unruly curls, teeth white and eyes flashing with enjoyment, and Karl’s heart contracts when he looks at him like that; he’s never felt so trapped, and he’s never felt so free.

 

Karl doesn’t tan well, the Lithuanian guy was right about that. He just goes a little pink on the nose and shoulders. The salt and the sun bleach his hair, though, until his usual honey-blond is liberally streaked with paler strands of gold and almost white. He slaps on sunscreen every hour, except on the old nazi tattoo which he studiously avoids, knowing that the ink will fade if not well-protected against the sun. In almost two years of strictest neglect, it _has_ faded a bit, but not enough. It would take a whole hell of a lot more sun to wipe it out entirely (and that would be hell in the literal sense, he thinks, blackly amused). He could have had it lasered, of course, but he hasn’t; for the same reason that he didn’t move town when Jay suggested it; didn’t take the grant for the bookstore when the Hamburg Literary Society offered it; didn’t hire a nurse to take some of the workload off his shoulders; hasn’t allowed himself to grow truly close to any of Jay’s family, although they’ve made the effort more than once. It’s part of the… penance, he supposes, for lack of a better word. No matter how pretentious it sounds, he needs those little acts of self-sabotage. They keep him grounded.

 

…

 

In his nightmares, he sees _him_ sometimes – Meleos, the Angel. The one he still thinks of as Mr Weiss when he goes about his business in the bookstore, because every corner of the place holds the old man’s presence so fondly. His waking thoughts of his former employer are always untainted and quite friendly: he holds him in mind when he arranges books for sale, when he tallies the accounts; hears his gruff voice state agreement or disapproval and follows what he’d imagine Mr Weiss’s advice to be, sometimes consciously, sometimes not.

In the nightmares, though, he isn’t Mr Weiss, he’s always Meleos. He doesn’t shout and throw him around like he did that night. He just stands in the shadows, watching Karl. The mark in the middle of his forehead is bleeding gently, the great wings drooping grey and unaccountably sad from his shoulders, and his eyes… his eyes are the worst. Karl couldn’t even describe the expression in them, but they hold no hope for him, or his kind in general.

 _Atonement is at best a journey of uncertain length to an unknown destination_. The Angel’s parting words ghost back to him in those nightmares, and their message is always bleak to him: no matter in how many ways he cuts himself, no matter how much devotion he showers on Jay, it won’t be enough; no matter how far he’s come, he’ll never arrive at a place where that night lies still before him, is still undoable. A place where Günther holds out that bottle and he says _no,_ or takes it and breaks it across Günther’s head instead. The past is not so easy a place to travel to.

 

…

 

A hand on his arm, warm and comfortingly real, brings him back; he’s dozed off on the shuttle bus back to the hotel. Startling up, he looks into Jayesh’s face. His eyes are quiet and concerned, their smoky blue a kinder shade than the piercing sky above. _Hey you_ , he says softly, not asking what’s wrong, not telling him it’ll be okay, not making one of his lame jokes, and the way in which he doesn’t say any of those things suddenly makes Karl’s eyes sting. He blinks, blaming the sun, and puts his hand atop Jay’s, squeezing slightly. _Hey yourself._

 

Undeserving or not, where can he try to go but forward?

 

…

 

Life is never quite okay for him these days, but at the Dead Sea, it comes very damn close. They spend their days at the beach, reading or swimming or talking; they take day-trips down the coast, going sailing, eating fresh dates and making love between sheets they’ll never have to wash. The sun is a hot, bright eye in the skies of Israel, and it has little room for self-flagellation and avenging angels. For a little while, Karl Dahmutter fancies himself unblemished, and it feels so good he tries to suck it up and store it, fortify himself against the gloom of the North Sea, which is never warm, and would suck you gleefully to its depths rather than bear you up towards the sun. He doesn’t think it will work – he’s made a lifestyle of fatalism – but now is now, and now is kind of perfect, and Mr Weiss’s books said that even those who sell their souls to the devil get their brief stint of happiness, because whatever else you can say about him, the devil never reneges on a deal.

 

…

 

 _I love you_ , _you know,_ he tells Jay one afternoon on a patio of whitewashed wood in a town with a name he can’t pronounce. It’s not a luxury he allows himself often, saying that, and Jay knows it – heck, perhaps even knows his reasons why; he’s much too perceptive for comfort about things like that. He smiles at Karl, reaching across the table to touch the back of his hand, just lightly. _I do know._ Karl suddenly feels like crying, he doesn’t know why. He’s not usually into girly crap like that.

 

…

 

The nightmares he does remember are usually pathetically obvious, but that doesn’t stop them from terrifying him. Traffic to the airport is bad, and they almost miss their flight, dashing through the terminal, Karl running fast to keep up with the effortless slide of Jayesh’s wheels on the glossy floor, keeping a death grip on the handles. The floor that bears the wheelchair along with such grace and speed seems to cling to Karl’s soles like mud, unwilling to let him go. He thinks that living with Jayesh is like that, sometimes: like they’re on a journey together – he’s not sure where and how long it’ll take  ­– and somehow Jayesh is always on time, and Karl is always struggling to keep up. Whenever they pass a toll booth, the wardens don’t want to let him through – _not that one, he’s tainted_ – until Jayesh steps in and tells them, _It’s okay, he’s with me_ , waving forgiveness around like it’s a backstage pass to everything. Once they’re through the toll station, on the plane, in the car, on the boat or train, it’s fine, and he can relax for a few hours; can sit back and breathe deep and hold Jay’s hand when no one’s looking, or nuzzle at that curious smoke-smell of his curls, and be the next best thing to happy. It’s making the connections that’s the hard part, because that’s when he remembers that maybe he’s not supposed to. Jay is the one who can’t walk, but somehow Jay is always there ahead of him, waiting; leaning out of the slowly moving train, waving at him as the plane wheels around, as the boat undocks. Karl is always running, making for Jay’s outstretched hand, his heart pounding in his chest like a small, terrified bird because he cannot, absolutely _cannot_ miss, even though that’s what he deserves; and sure enough, he always makes it by a hair’s breadth, squeezing in the door, hopping on the train, jumping across an expanse of dirty harbour water into that boat. And Jay is there, waiting, smiling at him, and for a while, everything is okay. But he can’t help thinking that sooner or later, there’ll come a time when he’ll inexorably miss: the toll barrier will come down before him, the plane will take off, he’ll slip off the train, miss his step on the dock, and the water will taste like oil and gull shit and his own betrayal as he thrashes, drowning.


End file.
